Ruth peered at her. April flushed. “We’re also passionate about our encouragement of abstinence. It’s pretty hard to focus on yourself when you’re thinking about someone else’s body.” Georgina raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “That’s why we don’t allow couples to join Wisewood.
“In that same spirit, we discourage kissing, hugging, and touching—for staff too—even in platonic cases. Some retreats forbid smiling, saying hello, and looking at one another, but we find these rules too drastic for our own community. Because we are nurturing a community here.” Ruth locked eyes with me, making my chest flutter. “We want you to help each other work the path, but we want to emphasize relationship with self over others. Make sense?”
We nodded. Ruth beamed. “Let’s move on to my favorite rule: ladies, we get to be free of makeup. Makeup was invented to create fear in women—that our blemishes need to be hidden, that our features require improvement. We disagree. We value you as you were born and hope you won’t waste a single moment of your time here worrying about society’s impossible beauty standards. Take care of basic personal hygiene, but other than that don’t concern yourself with styling your hair or wearing jewelry or perfume.” Ruth eyed Georgina. “Consider us your excuse not to worry about shaving for six months.”
April wrinkled her nose but caught herself before Ruth noticed.
“The last topic I want to address is responsibilities. We’re able to keep the program fees so low by asking our guests to chip in with Wisewood’s upkeep. I hope it’s obvious that Wisewood’s primary goal is not to turn a profit. Teacher regularly donates program spaces to women’s refuges and emergency shelters, helping those who have fallen on hard times to get back on their feet.” Ruth glanced at a bulletin board filled with photos of grinning people.
She turned back to us. “We find most of our guests are desperate to give back somehow. Chores take a couple of hours each day, and this exchange of labor for self-improvement gets everyone even more invested in Wisewood’s cause. All we ask is that you show up on time and do a good job. Remember too that we count on our guests to self-police the community. Believe me when I say they always do.”
Ruth returned to her seat, recrossed her ankles. “It’s a lot to remember, I know, but you’ll get the hang of it.” She winked. “Next week will be your first one-on-ones with Teacher. She’ll expect you to have the rules down pat by then.” People started shifting in their chairs—excited, nervous, both. Ruth checked her watch. “That’s all the time we have for today. Save your questions for tomorrow.”
We began gathering our things. Nat would be apoplectic if she’d heard some of these rules. What’s next? she would lecture. No deodorant? No laughing? No individual thought? What the fuck is this place?
I snapped the elastic band again—harder this time.
15
A SINGLE BLACK stool, illuminated by a spotlight, stood in the middle of the stage. The audience was quiet, holding their breath and squinting at the shadows. Pink sparks burst from stage right. The crowd gasped. Another burst on the left. They gasped again. The spotlight cut out for a second.
When it brightened again, I was standing center stage, stock-still with outstretched arms.
The audience cheered, unable to believe their eyes. I hadn’t walked onstage, had not been lowered or lifted to it. I had simply materialized.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I purred, “thank you for being here tonight. I’m Madame Fearless. Before we begin, let me remind you I do not use actors or plants in my audience. Everything you will see in this theater is one hundred percent real.” Affixed to my black floor-length dress was a cape bejeweled with a giant phoenix, wings spread. I swept it aside. “Let me also remind you I do not perform magic. Rather, I am a mentalist. Before you dismiss the difference as some snobbish technicality, I will explain. Tonight I won’t saw a person in half, though there are a few men on which I would like to attempt such a feat.” I arched an eyebrow and let the audience laugh. “I can’t guarantee I’d put them back together.”
The crowd continued to chuckle. I took a few steps to my right, the spotlight following me. “Nor will I endeavor any card tricks, sleight-of-hand maneuvers, or pull a never-ending knot of scarves from my mouth.” I touched my throat, as if imagining the attempt, then took several steps to the left. The audience had quieted again.
“If you insist on calling what I do magic, then it must be considered mental magic.” I returned to the middle of the stage and steepled my fingers, contemplating the sea of faces. “Let us begin. Is anyone willing to join me onstage?”
Hundreds of hands rocketed into the air.
In the two and a half years I had been performing this show, I’d discovered there was an art to selecting assistants. In my early days I called upon only the most appetent participants, the ones who wagged their arms and lifted their backsides off the seats, dying to be chosen. I learned the hard way that many of those people had an agenda. They wanted a chance to ham it up, pilfer my spotlight. As I worked night after night, tweaking aspects of the performance, I realized the key to selection was in the eyes. Sometimes I came down from the stage and walked the aisles in search of the widest, shiniest eyes I could find. I knew them the instant I saw them: the ones who were desperate to believe. Those were the aides I wanted.
While I patrolled the edge of the stage, searching the crowd, two theater employees set up a long table behind me. A third staff member wheeled a cart with an assortment of items next to the table. They had all exited stage left by the time I’d made my first selection. I welcomed a young woman with curly red hair and a shoulder-padded jacket, asked her to tell everyone her name and where she was from. Since all my shows to date had been on the East Coast, most of my participants hailed from New England, sometimes the Midwest. That was about to change. Last week my agent had secured a national tour of my show.
I handed Red a glass vase with a single white rose but no water. “Would you mind holding on to this for me?” She nodded, clutching the vase.
I shielded my eyes from the spotlight, scanning the crowd as if deep in thought, when in fact I’d already spotted my other targets. I called an older man with a big mole on his cheek to my stage and gave him a toolbox.